Pune: Techie loses Rs 98,000 in debit card fraud

Pune, Jan 21: A 35-year-old software engineer with an information technology company in Chinchwad, Pune received two SMSs saying her ICICI debit card was used for purchase worth Rs 93,000 and Rs 5,000. The messages shocked her as she never made any such purchase.

The victim named Priya Ramkrishnan has lodged a First Information Report (FIR) at the Chinchwad police station. Reacting to the victim's complaint, police said that someone might have hacked the Pin and shopped online.

When the victim called the ICICI customer care for a detailed inquiry, the bank claimed that somebody used the details of her debit card to make online purchases at shops in Chinchwad, Pune.

The Pune City Police suspect that criminals might have hacked the details of debit cards to make online shopping or have used cloned cards to make purchases.

Cops also revealed two way mod-us operandi adopted by credit/debit card fraudsters, one is to clone the card after stealing the data stored on it when the victim makes legitimate purchases and then use the cloned card for shopping. The second is to acquire card details, hack the PIN and use the card for online shopping.